Overexpression of C-KIT in Schistosomal Urinary Bladder Carcinoma,TAHANY SHAMS and MOKHTAR METAWEA
Abstract
Background and Aim: In Egypt, urinary bladder squamous cell carcinoma is most prevelant. It is attributed to chronic urinary infection with schistosoma haematobium (schistoso-miasis). The proto-oncogene c-KIT encodes a tyrosine kinase receptor, it has been implicated in the development of a number of human malignancies but there is no data concerning its expression in Schistosomal urinary bladder squamous cell carcinoma (SBSCC).
Material and Methods: We examined the expression of c-KIT on paraffin embedded tissue blocks from 60 radical cystectomies of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were obtained from pathology department of Suez Canal University (Ismailia, Egypt). Each slide was evaluated for staining extent of >10% of cells was considered positive.
Results: C-KIT overexpression was found in 78.3% (47/60) of the studied patients, the staining extent in the tumor cells were 11-50% and >50% in 20 (42.6%) and 27 (57.4%) respec-tively. The staining intensity for the positive cases were 14.9%, 63.8%, 21.3% as weak, moderate and strong intensity respec-tively. Patients with positive bilharzial ova had significantly higher c-KIT expression than patients without (95.2% Vs. 38.9%, p=0.000). Our results needs to be confirmed by other molecular and genetic studies, the high rate of positivity in SBSCC was one of the striking findings, however, CD117 may be a potential target for site specific immunotherapy to improve the outcome of this tumor.